If you know that life is basically going to be horrendously difficult at best and all but unlivable at worst or possibly even unlivable do you go on? And the choice to go on is the only thing that I think can be called hope. Because if hope isn't forced to encounter the worst possibility then it's a lie.
I love to compare different time frames. Poetry can evoke the time of the subject. By a very careful choice of words you can evoke an era completely throw the poem into a different time scale.
